Sarah Vine (aka Mrs Michael Gove) lays into Hugh Grant with all the relish the Mail can command as he stumbles into yet another impregnation episode (this time featuring a passing Swedish TV producer). "With a love life like this, no wonder he wants to silence the press," says Sarah, one soaring soprano in Fleet Street's predictable dawn chorus of disgust. What, though, about the privacy of the mother and, especially, Baby 3 (conceived pretty simultaneously with Baby 2, it transpires)?

There are reasonable arguments for choosing discretion over three-ring circuses of relish here. But it's very hard to explain why an international film star, the visible face of Hacked Off, should expect an automatic blanket of silence in such circumstances. There has to be a public interest here, an area where private life fades away – even, my eagle advisers say, in France. Unless, of course, he wants to be President Grant.